DANNY AIELLO BUTCHERS THE CLASSICS! / Who IS this guy?

Have you ever studied so much that words begin to lose their meaning? That's where I'm at, so I'm going to blog, hoping that it's both a rejuvenating and cathartic experience.

I'll start with a little diddle I wrote at work:

The Broker's Lament by: k mallon

A broker once woke up hungover
Pale like the white cliffs of Dover
And as it was before dawn
He thought, as he yawned
“All this just to drive a Landrover?”

As I was walking to the library earlier today, I saw an ad admonishing me to come and listen to “Danny Aiello LIVE!”, as it were. Where else but in Hoboken would you come across an advertisement for “Danny Aiello LIVE!”? That's right, Danny Aiello is playing at Tutto Pasta…The date escapes me…

I actually saw him at the place a few months ago, looking like a old pair of your favorite sneakers

This little square mile is laden with Italian culture. From the churches to the cheese, you can't go w/out seeing a few goombas. The bars, however, are left to the irish. As any real italian will tell you, a pub BY DEFINITION is irish. But I wouldn't know anything about bars these days. The only alcohol I drink is my bottle of wine on Sunday dinner.

All this talk of Italians is reminding me of something I wanted to blog about. I will now take the opportunity to adumbrate the hierarchy of social classes in the New York Metropolitan Area. This topic is not open for discussion.

In first place are the JEWS, I'm sorry WASPS you're a close second.

Let's just put this in list form:

1.) Jews
2.) WASPS
3.) Irish / Irish-German/Polish/ (Anything really just not Italian)
4.) Italians
5.) Sicilians (a completely difference race)
6.) African-Americans
7.) Hispanics

In the second wave of immigration in the US, the Jews went into private business, the Irish went into public service, and the Italians formed the Mafia. These are the three main divisions in the social hierarchy of the Metropolitan area. There is no debate.

I'm not sure where to place the Asian crowd. They do have their own list, however.

In first place are the JAPANESE. Thank you for Sony.
Then you got the Koreans. Thank you for doing my dry cleaning
Then come the CHINESE. Love that quart of pork fried rice when I'm drunk
Then come the FILIPINOS. Stay away from my children.

And why am I not afraid to blog about this? Because I'm an irish donkey. I love to make blatantly hypocritical political-misogynist remarks at Thanksgiving dinner, I love the NY triumvirate (Jets, Nets, Mets), I won't ever back down from a fight, I keep my mouth shut (in family matters), Alchoholism is sine qua non (and something secretly one must go through [read: guilt factor]), Sean Hannity is my Personal Jesus, I feel guilty all the time for eveything, I never complain, I never wear sun-screen on the golf course despite my grapefruit sunburn, I know the quickest way to get anywhere in NY (and relish in talking about it), I love my kids (all named after one of the Twelve Apostles, or Mary/Katherine if it's a girl), definitely hate my wife, and read the Post like it's going out of style.

“Dude, you look like you're 13 months pregnant” – BrokerA

“To do is to be” – Socrates
“To be is to do” – Sartre
“Do Be Do Be Do” – Sinatra

“Who IS THIS GUY?!” – Everyone

Fledgling-Tyro-esque Blog

Paying homage to the electronic shoulders I have stood upon in the blog world:

Big Ups to my man PaulxPark: http://www.xanga.com/paupar

From his blog; two crazy/great videos:

and as P.Park says this is “truly odd”:

Mike Doughty's blog is also way cooler than mine:

http://www.superspecialquestions.com

Here is a sample of his blog:

“From the B.B.C.:

Thailand's coup leaders have banned go-go dancers from performing for troops on the streets of Bangkok, fearing soldiers may be distracted.

“We have to maintain the seriousness of the coup,” a military spokesman said.”

I'm increasingly pushing the envelope here at 'work' by my blatant studying of GRE vocabulary. On the intricacies of the vocab (which is for this word-whore his fav part)…I am learning how many words take different meanings when used as a different part of speech; exempli gratis:

Husband (verb) – to save
Founder (verb) – to fail

Perhaps a more relevant example would be “signal” when used as an adj. Like it was a signal event. Meaning important, I think.

“Hey, Stevie Wonder, you gotta know how to read the market, OK?” – BrokerA

“Because I can communicate with people from all walks of life” – Daaaaaaavid Brent!

“C'mon Ralph…look at me…I look like a K-Mart model” – Quoting myself here

Bedtime for Kev

Rockin' out to Dylan's WW3 Blues:

“Well, the doctor interrupted me just about then,
Sayin, “Hey I've been havin' the same old dreams,
But mine was a little different you see.
I dreamt that the only person left after the war was me.
I didn't see you around.”

Well, now time passed and now it seems
Everybody's having them dreams.
Everybody sees themselves walkin' around with no one else.
Half of the people can be part right all of the time,
Some of the people can be all right part of the time.
But all the people can't be all right all the time
I think Abraham Lincoln said that.
“I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours,”
I said that”

Full lyrics:

http://bobdylan.com/songs/ww3.html

Long day. Up at 6AM. Work until 5. Series 7 Class until 8. Home by 9.

After a day like this, I need Mr. Dylan, a cup of green tea, and my new candle I just bought.

Although I am thinking right now that bathing in warm milk, along with lillies, almonds, and honey would really be great. DOES ANY PLACE OFFER THIS?

J/K. I'm a broker remember? I don't take baths. I shower. And while I shower I fuckin' grunt.

Cause the other only situation where the skills you learn in broking would be useful would be in a war-zone.

Ich Bin Von Kopf Bis Fuß Auf Liebe Eingestellt

I'm either one way or the other. Either I'm killing myself or I'm doing everything in my power to further myself. I'm hinged on the latter, just at the moment. And it's disgusting. I have, however, upped my verbal score on the GRE from a 590 to a 740 – 99th percentile. So there-ya-go naysayers (I actually don't think I have any naysayers [in GRE terms])…and these people at Kaplan say my writing should get a 5.5 – 6.0.

So I should just relax, right?

Negative. I'm like a goddam clydesdale. I'm memorizing every word ever written. And taking every test. Please get word to October to rescue me.

In other recent news, there is no other recent news. I'm studying for the fucking GRE.

La Ciencia Del Sueño

I am way excited to see Gondry's the Science of Sleep, as well as go to the MOBIA (www.mobia.org) – all of that will have to wait, though, as I'm indisposed until October 7th. My life is kind of like running on a treadmill – you know you're going to stay running until the clock reaches zero – so you just want it to end. All I am doing is working until Oktober 7th.

Maybe I'm not exactly “working” though. At work, I feel more like a journalist, or perhaps an anthropologist(!)

Today, though, I am assuming the role of an author. I would now like to take the opportunity to introduce the result of the day's work:

Ye Olde Ode to Brokers of Olde (A Haiku) By: k mallon

Befuddled peasants
“One more round in the clip, please”
Golf shirts; third mortgage

END BLOG TRANSMISSION

YOU KNOW IT

Pari Passu

I'm wondering if I have what it takes to be an academic. Not in being able to cut the mustard, but in an INDIVIDUALIZATION type of way. What I mean to say here is that I don't look the role. I personally think I look like a peasant. I come shaped with broad, stony features, large calves and traps inherited from long generations serving the earth – ancestors who cursed the black sky with ignorant ennui.

Sometimes I feel like it was a completel accident that I ended up at Columbia. Like “my kind” didn't belong there.

But fuck that – I also happen to believe that my genetic timeline is marked by a few irish monks. And furthermore, that their diligent temperment rubbed off on me a bit. And I believe it has.

BrokerA: “hey buddy, your 15 minutes are up, so grab your coloring book, and fuck off”

Panegyric/Broker Love

Things are hectic here on the Emerging Markets desk here at Tullett's. Somewhere in the fray of trading, a broker, a rotund-frog-faced-hutt of a man apparently fucked up. To this, the head of the desk proceeded to “isolate the victim”:

“Shut the fuck up, you fucked the whole thing up… You're killing this business, Larry…you know what? Don't come into work…I'll pay your fucking weekly check…just to have you not come in and fuck things up…you're costing me money Larry…and everyone's laughing at you…you're horrible…I gotta get out of here before…shut the fuck up, SHUT THE FUCK UP!….FUCK YOU, Larry”

This was in front of the whole desk. The man just sighed and proceeded to do as told – he shut the fuck up.

Deus Ex Machina

I've heard a lot of responses from various brokers upon telling them that I went to Columbia. I think I heard the best one today though:

“Whaddyja get lost?”

I am all decked out like a mafioso today. Canali tie and all.

And I am starting to believe in a “well-balanced diet”. I have been eating Kashi for breakfast. Brainfood.

And it seems to be working, The WSJ today reported a 12% increase in my verbal score on the GRE. Speaking on that subject, there are some words which I have never even HEARD of that the GRE exercises. Like hoodwink, legerdemain, and probity. They also test by using obscure references to farm equipment, animal vocabulary, and other weird things.

“It's a tall order, but we're taller” – M. Skinner

“Be hit and hit back” – W. Zevon

BrokerA: Hey it's a small world, right?
BrokerB: Not with you in it, slim

Sturm und Drang

German: “Storm and Stress”

Last night FourPoint & I headed out to Wantagh to see The Venerable Roger Waters perform at the Jones Beach Theatre. Despite the fucking tempest that we had to endure, our seats, bequeathed unto us by my ailing father, were some of the best in the house. The crowd was a bit aged, and I think so was the content. Waters, aside from being a “chilled-out entertainer” needs to work on the content of his act. It's a bit passe. His whole act is entrenched in the 80's. And he lays it on pretty thick. I actually sell Waters, and am saddened that I didn't enjoy the concert as much as I believe I should have.

So, condolences, Mr. Waters. If its any constellation prize, you seem to be well fit. Is it the political rage that keeps you so sinewy?

Maybe you could start a fad diet: The Anger Diet.

Additional Blog:

Right now listening to Bach's Fugue in C Minor. Seeing the aweseome architecture in his counterpoint. Wasn't it he who said something to the extent of 'if you call me a genius, it is only because you have no idea how hard I have worked'?

While in Praha, I spent a large part of my self-imposed pittance to gain entry into a concert held in a Chapel right off the Charles Bridge. It felt incredible, being in that cold chapel, drunk off eastern european dark sweet beer, tired and hungry, surrounded by penitent sinner and pilgrims of post communist states.

“It is impossible to say just what I mean!” – T.S Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Te Deum Laudamus…..